Great news! Tomorrow (August 11^th) we are hosting a FREE webinar to demo the next release of Micro Niche Finder! This new version is created not only from our desire to constantly improve the software, but also from your invaluable feedback. We think you will really enjoy the new release

Among other things, here are a few of the new features that will be covered in this release…

*Sort search results on the “checked” column… It sorts by either checked results at bottom or checked results to top, whichever you prefer.

*Column “headers” on the search results page remain onscreen when you scroll down the page.

*Added a “What is This” feature to help you identify niche keyword phrases that are unknown to you.

* There is now a “Buying Keyword” feature to find keywords that a person looking to buy a particular niche product would use. 

*Selected domains on View Available Domains are also copied to the Windows clipboard when you click the Add Selected to My Domain List button…which makes it easy to retrieve should something go amiss.

*The results grid now remembers the last column and sort order between sessions.

And more… 

The essential details are as follows:
Date: Wednesday August 11th 2010
Time: 7:00 PM EDT
Sign Up Page: http://www.snip2.com/re/mfbl
System Requirements: For PC-based attendees: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista. For Macintosh®-based attendees: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer.

Naturally, this webinar is FREE!

If you own or are thinking about purchasing Micro Niche Finder, you will definitely want to be sitting in live on this webinar. It’s the perfect opportunity to learn and get your answers directly from the creators.

Space is limited, so register and reserve your spot right now: http://www.snip2.com/re/mfbl

P.S – If you need a time converter to determine what time this webinar starts in your local time, use http://www.snip2.com/re/timezone

Internet marketing is a rapidly evolving field and it always has been an environment where those that become complacent eventually find themselves left in the dust; however, the recent meteoric rise of the internet becoming “socialized” coupled with behavioral patterns based on trusted “personal” recommendations is definitely shaking up traditional search methods.

In blunt terms, the Facebook model of interacting on the internet is colliding with Google’s model of searching on the internet. Google’s method of providing relevant search results depend on a.) Either that you go to Google and search a term; b.) Or you have a Google toolbar and search from there; c.) Once you used Google to search a term, their secretive and constantly changing algorithm determines their search results. For a website to become relevant – and thus appear highly ranked in the search results – it must meet Google’s criteria for what constitutes relevancy. That means a website must fit into Google’s algorithm nicely – for instance, having a good amount of backlinks, proper meta data labeling, fast site speed, the right keywords, the correct amount of keywords to article length, etc. (and this is all just educated guesses, no one knows the magic formula). This has proven to be an effective way to navigate the vast internet, but a lot of high quality websites run the risk of getting left by the wayside (maybe they don’t have enough backlinks, perhaps Google feels they are keyword-stuffing, etc.). Websites ranked on the 5^th page of Google Search results, even if they are engaging and well planned, have an extremely difficult time getting to the first page – new websites in particular are all too familiar with this problem.

Now the Facebook model operates a different way: instead of using an algorithm to determine relevancy, it allows YOU to determine relevancy. By sheer virtue of clicking on a Like or Share button, you are effectively telling the world (and Facebook of course) that this webpage meets your standards, interests you, and is relevant not only to you but probably to your social circle as well. Facebook keeps track of this information and uses their algorithm to try and determine other websites that may interest you – which you can then Like or Dislike and in turn affects their tailored algorithm for you. It’s a different way of interacting with the web and it’s catching on like wildfire.

Let’s not kid ourselves – if Google is King, Facebook is definitely trying to become The Great Usurper. Facebook has unleashed a slew of Facebook-centric applications to make the internet more “Facebook-esque” and with almost half a billion users, Facebook is one of the largest, most interactive, and best-funded competitors against Google. Whether or not Facebook will succeed in becoming the premier search website is hard to say right now, but it can be stated with certainty that making your website more Facebook friendly will behoove you in the short-term and (very possibly) the long run.

One of the best ways to make your website more Facebook-friendly is to add a Like button.

This is how Like Buttons work: if you put one of these buttons onto your website, people who visit that website and also use Facebook can click that Like button and Facebook will show your website in that person’s facebook wall for all of their friends to see. If their friends click the link, they will be led to your website. As the original person’s friends arrive on your page, the Like Button becomes personalized for them by displaying which of their friends already like your page. As more people click the Like button on your page, the exposure your page receives grows exponentially. Not only is the opportunity for great exposure, but because a friend “Likes” your website it will be perceived to have greater value because a friend endorses it.

Now that you know WHY you should add a Like button to your website,the next blog post will explain HOW to put a Facebook Like button on your website.

Version 4.6.4 of Micro Niche Finder has been posted for download, so if you haven’t downloaded the newest version yet make sure to download this version pronto. It’s easy to do – click “check for program updates” on the main screen (it’s listed under the “Additional Tasks” headline). A new window will open and you will be prompted to download. Run the update, follow the install wizard, and you’ll be using the new and improved version right away.

Among other features and improvements, Version 4.6.4 fixes several minor bugs and updates other services. This newest version includes updates to the “Domain Availability” function, the Micro Niche Finder Service Manager application, and the Background Download Service.

Furthermore, if your screen resolution width is less than 896 pixels, the Search Results and Project Results pages will automatically remove the trends graph and resize the results grid for your convenience.

There are some cosmetic changes too. Don’t worry though,  the layout is still the straightforward, clean, uncluttered appearance that is characteristic of Micro Niche Finder.

Micro Niche Finder offers a Measure of Backlinks (MOB henceforth) feature that is extremely useful for internet marketers trying to determine a niche or market’s viability.

The MOB feature gives the estimated number of backlinks required to land on the first page of Google search results. Google LOVES backlinks, but they have become more discerning about the backlinks they deem acceptable or worthy in recent algorithms. To understand how backlinks currently work in Google, it’s important to understand what happened in the past so that you DON’T try a method that has been proven not to work. If you have been in the internet marketing business for a while, you probably already know a lot of what I am about to say; but for people new to internet marketing, this information should help not only explain backlinks but also put backlinks into context.

In the past, a person could join a “Link Farm” and accept and give out their links to just about anyone else in that Link Farm community (and this membership cost money, of course). A person who had a website about organic dog food could have links pointing to a travel website in Fiji, and the person that owned the Fiji travel website would have a link pointing back to the organic dog food website. These two topics are completely unrelated, but Link Farms encouraged “reciprocal linking” – the practice of two parties linking to each others websites, regardless of content. The result was reciprocal linking on such a massive scale that basically Google had to change how it calculated backlinks.

From Google’s perspective, backlinks should give clues about the content and pertinence of a related website; for example, an organic dog food website could have a backlink coming from a website about organic cat food. This demonstrates that there is an underlying related content – organic pet food. This link therefore adds value and displays that the website is important to queries related to this niche. But when websites have links pointing to them from a billion unrelated websites, the backlinks don’t add value to any website and give no clue to the content and pertinence of any website. Google despises websites that have backlinks coming at them from link farms. If you want your website to rank highly, stay away from reciprocal links farms. Google wants a website to have quality backlinks, not a large quantity of backlinks (although a quantity of quality backlinks is the ideal to strive for).

Quality Backlinks…so important! If an authority website has a link pointing to your website that makes for an excellent and high quality backlink. Examples of authority websites include ezinearticles.com, amazon.com, nextag.com, squidoo.com, wikipedia and various other encyclopedic and shopping websites, etc. There’s many more authority websites than the ones listed above so don’t feel confined. Authority sites tend to be big, old sites because Google loves old sites (they feel like these websites are in it for the long haul) and they love big sites because of all the worthy backlinks they provide. If you can get a link from these websites pointing straight to your website, you will climb up the rankings.

Here is an example of how to get a quality backlink that Google will love: if your niche is “Color Changing Shower Heads”, write a good article about showers or shower technology (anything to that effect, try to keep it related to your keywords) on ezinearticles.com. Make sure your keyword(s) (Color Changing Shower Heads) is the title of your article. Once Ezine publishes it, you will have a high-ranked authority website pointing links right at you! These are excellent backlinks, and as an added bonus if you include the link to your website in the author bio box, you will see increased traffic to your website.

Now that you understand the concepts behind backlinks, let’s discuss the actual MOB feature.

To see your MOB feature, you must first click on your “Exact Phrase Count”. If you don’t click on the Exact Phrase Count first, your MOB column will appear blank. Once you click on the Exact Phrase Count, you will see “Get MOB” appear in the MOB column – but before clicking on MOB, click on SOC. The SOC and MOB features sort of cross check each other so it’s good to look at both.

Measure of Backlinks (MOB) - Order in which to check the features

Once you have found a niche that has suitable Exact Phrase Counts and SOC (for this example, the phrase I’m investigating is ‘Basco Shower Doors’), click on your “Get MOB”. A number will appear in the category.

MOB

This number is NOT the number of backlinks there are for this term. However, it is the median number. Click on the number and a small screen will appear:
 

MOB Analysis

You will see some of the links are highlighted – these are the figures we are using to find the median. Obviously, if the MOB feature shows a low number for the median, the less backlinks you will need to get on the first page of Google. If your median amount of links is high (ex: 200) you are going to have to put in a considerable amount of work to get enough backlinks to get on the front page. It’s not impossible to do but it can be difficult.

These are the top ten websites (and their corresponding backlinks) on Google for your keyword. You can explore these links listed under the “Link” column by clicking on them. A new window will open and you will automatically be directed to the website you clicked.

If you click on the number listed under the “Backlinks column” a new window will open and you will see the backlinks that corresponding website has. This is an excellent way to scope the competition and find new avenues for you to try and get backlinks from.

You can also click on the “Click Here to see the Google Results” text on the bottom of your screen – a new window will automatically open and you will literally see the exact search results page in Google. Once again, it’s just another way to see how your competitors are getting ranked so highly. Analyze what your competition is doing, and then do it better than them. Use backlinks and the MOB feature to conquer the competition and get those high rankings on Google!

When you search for a niche using Micro Niche Finder, you will notice that there are two features called Local Search Count and Global Search Count.

Local Search Count and Global Search Count

These two features, although similar in name, actually display totally different values that can help determine the success of your potential niche by taking into account its local search amounts and its global search amounts.

The Local Search Count is the approximate number of search queries that match your keyword/potential niche. It’s called local because it focuses on traffic based from your country – the default Google Server settings are for America, so if you do not change these settings Local Search Count will display traffic coming from America. If you have changed your Google Server settings to a different country, such as Sweden for example, your Local Search Count will be pertaining to Sweden (or whatever country your Google Server is set to). Local Search Count compiles search data performed in the most recent month. Sometimes you may see “Not Enough Data” – this means the Search Count is so low it simply doesn’t register. Ideally, you want high Local Search Counts, so any keyword that returns “not enough data” may not be the easiest keyword to generate money from.

Unlike the Local Search Count which only shows figures for the most recent month, the Global Search Count displays the average monthly search data from a recent 12 month period. Obviously, people in different countries (using different servers) will search for different things and keywords – some keywords transcend state boundaries and are popular the world over while other keywords are very country-specific. Since Global Search Count is averaging from a much bigger pool of information, it explains why Global Search figures can be much higher, lower, or about the same as your Local Search results.

For example, look at the difference between Local Search Count and Global Search Count for the keyword “Electric Scooter”:

Local Search Count vs. Global Search Count Results

As you can see, less people search for this term in America (which is the default Google Server, by the way) than people using other international servers worldwide. The Global Search Count is higher, therefore telling me that it is a popular term beyond America. It is safe to deduct that if I were to successfully make a profit from this keyword, it would not come as a surprise if a portion of my sales came from outside the USA because this keyword is popular throughout the world.

The Global Search Count gathers its information from search traffic from all countries – not just your local country and default Google Server. However, if there isn’t a lot of data you may see “Not Enough Data” appear and you may want to reconsider pursuing this keyword.

Once you search a term, you will see a screen with columns. Inside of these columns will be some familiar features (SOC, OCI, Ad Cost, etc.) but there will be new columns containing new features too. The second column is a new one, and it will say “Domain Availability .com/.org/.net”.

The reason you see “.com/.org/.net” is because these are three top-level domains. “.gov” and “.edu” are not available to the public, and “.biz” doesn’t generally rank as well as the “.com”, “.org”, and “.net” domains. Micro Niche Finder will only check these three types of domains for availability.

Once you have found a keyword or niche that appeals to you, click on the small circles with the question marks inside.

Domain Availability Feature

Micro Niche Finder will check to see if any of the domain names are available – if there is an available opening, you will see a green circle with a check mark. If there is not an available opening, you will see a red circle with an “x” in the middle.

Domain Availability

Each of these three circles corresponds to a domain name. The first circle (the one to the far left) corresponds to “.com” domains. The second circle (middle circle) corresponds to “.org” domains. The third circle (the one to the far right) corresponds to “.net” domains. As in the example above, I instantly see that for my search term (“mystic topaz jewelry”, in case you were wondering) there is not a “.com” domain available. Therefore, www.mystictopazjewelry.com is not available for purchase. However, the second and third circles are both green with checkmarks, so I know that www.mystictopazjewelry.org and www.mystictopazjewelry.net are both available domains! If I want either or both of those, I know I can buy them right away.

Now, you can click on these red and green circles to come to a new screen:

Check Domain Availability

On the left you will see the complete domain names. On the right, you will see if it is available or not quite literally spelled out for you. If any of the domain names appeal to you, check the box next to the appropriate domain names (in this example I clicked on both of them). Once the domain you want is selected, click on the “Add Checked Domains to my Domain List” tab. If the domain isn’t available, you will not be able to select it.

Micro Niche Finder will put your selected domains on a list, which allows you to store and purchase domain names in bulk.

To access your Domain List, look at the tabs running along the near top of your screen. These tabs include “Home”, “Back”, “Manage Searches”, “Manage Projects”, “Manage Background Queue”, among others. There is a tab called “My Domain List” – click on that to see your selected domains.

My Domain List

You will then see a screen with an entire list of domains you previously clicked – select those you would like to purchase  and then click on the big blue tab titled “Bulk Registration”. For convenience, if you wish to select and purchase your entire list, click on “check all domains”.

List of Domains to Register

Once you click the “Bulk Registration” button, you will see a screen pop up:

Register Domains

Click OK and a new window in your default web browser will appear. You will see a large white box where you can enter the domain names you wish to purchase. This is easy and you DO NOT have to manually type everything in. You see, when Micro Niche Finder opened this window for you, it also automatically copied the domains you checked using Windows Clipboard.

All you have to do is right click in the white box and select “paste” from the menu. Or, you can click in the box and hit Ctrl + V on your keyboard (this is a paste shortcut). The website(s) you selected will then appear in the box. It will display the first 500 websites you clicked.

Paste Domain Names

You will have to enter the access code (the digits) into the blank box – this is the websites way of making sure you are not a robot or some type of software. Once you enter the access code, click the blue search button.

Once it verifies that these websites are available, you will have to set up an account if you haven’t done so already. It is pretty self-explanatory from here, as the website does a really good job of walking you through the registration and payment process. For your information, these two example websites were not purchased, so they might still be available if you want them.

Once you have purchased the domain names, it’s time to TAKE ACTION and get your websites in working order! You don’t want to purchase the domain names and then let them languish unless this is your purpose so that you can attempt to “resell” them at a higher profit. Once you own your domain names, begin creating content, backlinks, and start your marketing plan!

Micro Niche Finder’s OCI feature (Online Commercial Intent) is one way to determine a niches potential value. The higher the OCI the more likely a person searching for that particular term is looking to make a purchase, so obviously the higher the OCI the better!

Lately some users have noticed a problem with OCI – when clicked on, instead of a number the words “no response” eventually appear. This is not a problem with Micro Niche Finder, but rather with Microsoft and Microsoft Adlabs. However, there are several options you can utilize to get your OCI working.

Previously, the OCI timeout value was a rather low wait period. You can now change the timeout period for OCI by either increasing or decreasing the timeout period. It’s incredibly easy to do this.

On your main screen, look on the right hand column under the heading “important announcements”. Beneath the Tab “Google Settings” (which has always been there), there is a new tab called “OCI Timeout Setting”.

OCI Timeout Setting

If you receive “no response” instead of a numerical value in your OCI, you would want to increase the Timeout value. The maximum time you can set is for 180 seconds (3 minutes) but the minimum amount of time is 10 seconds.

OCI Timeout Value

If these tweaks don’t work, we have also included the website where you can get the OCI figure directly. We have noticed that finding the OCI in this manner sometimes clears the cache.

OCI Timeout Value - Text is a Hyperlink

Simply type the phrase you are looking for in the search bar, and hit the button “query”.

OCI - Run a Search Query

This will generate an OCI number, but their values go from .01 to 1.00. So if your search value comes to .93, think of it as 93% (a high OCI) – the higher the number and closer to 1.0, the higher the percentage for OCI.

Micro Niche Finder’s Strength of Competition feature (SOC) is of tremendous help when hunting for potential niches. However, you can analyze the statistics of SOC further!

It’s incredibly easy. Pick a keyword, click on “SOC”, and a number will appear. Many people do not realize this, but by clicking on the number given for your SOC more information is at your disposal.

Strength of Competition Statistics

The first link is called “inanchor count”. By clicking on this, you will see how many times this exact phrase appeared in anchor text. For those of you unfamiliar with anchor texts, it’s the text that acts as a link (usually its either bolded, underlined, or a different color than the rest of the text). By clicking on the anchor text, the viewer is transported to another page via these backlinks.

The second link is called “intitle count”. This shows how many times this exact phrase has appeared in webpage title tags. Likewise, the “inurl count” shows how many times that exact keyword appears in urls.

Generally speaking, for all of these figures, lower is better. For example, if the SOC light is green but the inanchor count is high and if all of the niches statistics look promising, this niche should not be discarded solely because of high inanchor counts. If all of these counts are low though, it’s should be easy to dominate the niche with a little common sense, action, and work. These tidbits of information are helpful to find out more about your competitors and their websites.

As we already know, Micro Niche Finder sorts through mountains of data to help you find potential niches to make a profit. Suppose you find a niche that appeals to you – its stats are great, there are affiliate programs (should you choose to go that route), it’s easy to write about (for article submission and blog posts), and you feel that this niche is good enough to develop. Once you decide to go ahead with the niche, you may want to make a website about this niche and so you need a good search engine optimized domain name!

To see if the niche domain name is available for purchase, simply click on the keyword phrase that caught your attention. A list of options will appear – click on the one that says “DomainTools Lookup”

DomainTools Lookup on Micro Niche Finder

When you click on it, a new window will appear  on your internet browser, bringing you automatically to domaintools.com and checking your phrase to see if a domain name is available for it. In this example, the phrase we checked was “Billiard Balls” – not a good niche, competition is way too stiff and the niche is saturated, but I checked to see if the domain name was available all the same (on the off chance it is available, it’s possible to make a good resale profit from it!)

Of course, upon clicking on the DomainTools Lookup feature, it’s quickly realized that billiardballs.com is not available. If your phrase isn’t available, it will look similar to the picture below, but in greater detail. If it is available, feel free to purchase!

DomainTools Lookup

If your phrase is unavailable: to the far right corner of the screen, you should see a search bar next to a button that says “Whois”. Type a different phrase into that box to see if it’s available. In this case, we typed in “Unique Billiard Balls” (but with no spaces, like a proper domain name would be).

Whois Lookup

What a surprise, uniquebilliardballs.com is available!

DomainTools Lookup

That’s intriguing. We could now go back to my Micro Niche Finder and search the term “unique billiard balls” (or whatever phrase you want to use) and see what sorts of stats or other keywords and niches arise. Spoiler alert: “unique billiard balls” has no competition, very high OCI (91%) but not many people are searching for that exact phrase – if you like a challenge, go for it. We’re too busy with other Micro Niche Finder related developments right now, so we’re going to take a pass on this niche…although now that we posted it, we can’t promise it will stay available for long.

This DomainTools Lookup is a very convenient feature if you are looking for domain names. Sometimes it’s easy to find a domain name, other times it takes a bit of ingenuity and wordplay to find a workable domain name. Remember, no matter what niche and keyword you are working on, it’s a creative developing process, so take action and have fun with your discoveries!

There is a very simple, one click method to check if your Micro Niche Finder is updated.

On your software’s main page, look for the title “Additional Tasks”. The third option is titled “Check for Program Updates”. Click on that and a new window will appear – after scanning your Micro Niche Finder, it will either tell you that you have the most recent version of Micro Niche Finder or it will tell you what version you are missing and allow you to download it. You can check this at any time just to make sure you have the latest and greatest of what Micro Niche Finder can offer!

Micro Niche Finder Program Updates